


Laughter

by pulangaraw



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-24
Updated: 2009-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-02 05:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pulangaraw/pseuds/pulangaraw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't know if it's himself or someone else or no one at all, all he knows is that it's good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laughter

It all starts with laughter. It's his first memory. The laughter of a child bubbling up in the darkness. He doesn't know if it's himself or someone else or no one at all, all he knows is that it's good.

He cherishes the memory. It's what keeps him sane. What keeps him going when times are dark and friends are few. It's there when he needs it most. Light and carefree it rises up, fills the air around him, slips underneath his skin, warms his bones and makes his hearts leap with happiness. It saves him from losing himself. Whenever he is on the brink of darkness, a child's laughter rings in his ears. The mirth leads him back to himself.

Sometimes when he walks around a market on a strange and unknown planet he can hear it, faintly. Just around the corner. Sometimes when he sits on a green beach and watches a violet sunset, it rushes in with the waves and curls around his naked toes. Sometimes when he runs through back alleys it follows him, always just a step behind him.  
It's always there. Accompanying him on his run through the curving passages of time. It catches him when he isn't looking for it. It waits for him when he's searching.

There was a moment in his life when he thought he'd lost it. When he believed that what he'd done had driven away the laughter forever. He didn't dare look for it. He spent days, weeks, months closing his eyes and ears to every outside distraction. During that time he was truly alone. And he wanted it so. He thought he deserved it.  
But the laughter came back to him. It was persistent. It tickled his toes when he crept over the metal floors of his home. It whispered into his ears when he listened to his own hearts beat. It flickered across his vision when he stared into the dark nothingness of space. It forgave him when he couldn't forgive himself.  
In the end he welcomed it back. He embraced it again and accepted that it was part of him. Part of his life.

Sometimes he closes his eyes, lets the laughter rise inside him, lets it crest and overflow, breaking the boundaries of space and time before it abates. He's had many bodies, he's lived many lives, but always this feeling remains the same. It lives deep inside him. It's all around him. He knows as long as he can hear the laughter he will never truly be alone. And he is grateful for it.

He can hear the laughter in others as well. In the raucous laughter of the young and the quiet chuckle of the old. He can see it too. In every child that laughs at him. In every stranger that returns his smile when they pass on the street. A twinkle in Teegan's eyes, the twitching corner of Jack's mouth, the way Romana's shoulders shake with suppressed giggles, Donna's raised eyebrow. It feels as if it's not just his, this laughter. It seems to be everyone's and that makes it even more precious.

There are times when he can feel the wave of humour moving through his body. It builds in his belly, deep inside where he thinks his soul must reside, and it spreads. Rolls up, into his chest, expands to fill his brain with light and merriment. The moment it reaches his toes and fingertips, he cannot contain himself any longer; he springs up, feeling lighter than air, and for a moment he wonders why it is he doesn't fly away. He jumps and dances then. Age does not matter any more. Memories fall away and worries are insubstantial. Nothing else matters but the happiness that rushes through him, fills his blood.

He told his friends that, when he looked into the time vortex, he ran away. It isn't quite true. He did run away, yes. But he did not run out of fear. He ran because he had to. Because the moment he looked into the vortex he saw the soul of laughter. The centre of mirth. It overwhelmed him. It made his arms flail and his legs run without a conscious thought. He simply had to move or he would have burst with laughter. It was the first time he wondered if maybe it wasn't a memory, but just the sound of the universe laughing about itself.

Sometimes when the laughter is almost inaudible he crawls into the deepest insides of the TARDIS, following the faint swirls of merriment that tickle his fingertips. He always knows he will find it there. It will always wait for him, jump out at him the moment he thinks he's lost it's trace. The heart of the TARDIS pulses with it's life.

It plays with him, but it is never cruel. It fades into the background when he is busy or when he needs to be serious and grown up. But whenever he's looking for it, it's there. The one companion that has never left him.

Nine hundred years and still he can hear the laughter bubbling up from the darkness. During those rare hours that he closes his eyes and sleeps, it fills his dreams. And he can almost touch it in this strangely eternal moment just before he truly awakens.

He doesn't know how it will end. He hopes it will end the way it started. With mirth. With the laughter of a child.


End file.
